France's opposition on Thursday withdrew a bill it submitted to the country's parliament aimed at restoring the retirement age to 62 after raising it to 64, after two days of nationwide strikes against the law raising the retirement age.

Lawmakers from the independent Leut bloc proposed the bill with the support of leftists and far-righters, and the bloc's chairman, Bertrand Panchet, denounced the emptying of the proposed text in parliament by the parties of the government coalition in parliament.

"There is nothing left in the text except the amendments of the presidential minority, and out of responsibility we decided to withdraw our text," Panchet said.

Parliament Speaker Yael Brune-Pive, a member of Macron's party, has said the bill is unconstitutional because there are no financial allocations to cover the cost. The Speaker based her decision on Article 40 of the Constitution, which prohibits any parliamentary motion that burdens public finances.


"You crush democracy"

In response to the speaker's statement, the head of the group of communist deputies in parliament, Andrei Chasini, said: "You are destroying and crushing parliamentary democracy."

Eric Cockerell, chairman of parliament's finance committee, also denounced what he described as "political and partisan decisions that came on the orders of the executive branch (the government)," referring to the decision not to put the bill to a vote.

French Labour Minister Olivier Dosso said the opposition's proposal was "nihilistic and empty". Addressing supporters of the bill, the minister added: "You are not proposing anything other than evasion, because you do not have a common alternative project."

With the end of the consideration of the bill, President Macron and his coalition hope to turn the page on the file of pension reform, despite the continuation of demonstrations against it, as protests erupted on Tuesday in the capital Paris and other French cities.

The French president signed a bill raising the retirement age into law on April 14 after the Constitutional Council completed its review, despite demands from trade unions to abandon the measure that sparked months of protests.

The new retirement law is due to come into force in early September, and the French government justifies raising the retirement age by deteriorating pension fund finances and an aging population.